Correction: Police Barracks Ambush story

By Associated Press | April 11, 2017 at 9:08 amUPDATED: April 12, 2017 at 1:51 pm

FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2015 file photo, Eric Frein is led away by Pennsylvania State Police Troopers at the Pike County Courthouse after his preliminary hearing in Milford, Pa. Frein, who is charged in the fatal ambush of a state police barracks, told authorities on the night of his capture, "I did this. No one else did," according to a videotaped interview played for jurors at his capital murder trial on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. (Butch Comegys/The Times & Tribune via AP, File)

MILFORD, Pa. (AP) — In a story April 11 about the trial of a man charged in a fatal police barracks ambush, The Associated Press reported erroneously the name of the trooper whom Eric Frein allegedly shot twice. He is Cpl. Bryon Dickson II, not Trooper Alex Douglass.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Jurors watch police interview with barracks ambush suspect

Jurors have watched an interview police conducted with a survivalist charged in a fatal ambush at a Pennsylvania police barracks

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM

Associated Press

MILFORD, Pa. (AP) — A survivalist charged in a fatal ambush at a state police barracks told authorities on the night of his capture, “I did this. No one else did,” according to a videotaped interview played for jurors at his capital murder trial on Tuesday.

Prosecutors showed the video that police recorded on Oct. 30, 2014, hours after Eric Frein was captured, ending 48 days on the run in the Pocono Mountains.

“All I can say is I’m sorry,” Frein, sobbing at times, told police investigators in an interview room at the Blooming Grove barracks in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Prosecutors say Frein hid in the woods across the street from the barracks and opened fire during a late-night shift change, killing Cpl. Bryon Dickson II and critically wounding Trooper Alex Douglass.

Frein, who’s 33, faces charges including murder of a law enforcement officer and terrorism. He could face a death sentence if he’s convicted. He has pleaded not guilty.

The video showed two state police interrogators repeatedly pressing Frein for answers on why he targeted two troopers he said he didn’t know. He was reluctant to answer, finally agreeing with the investigators’ statements that he did it to “wake people up” and that he wanted to make a change in government, according to the video.

“There’s nobody to vote for,” he said.

Earlier, the college dropout seemed to suggest he had been despondent over his life.

“Thirty-one. Still living with my parents. No prospect for any sort of future … drive a truck or something,” he told them.

Frein said he planned the ambush using Google Earth, choosing the Blooming Grove barracks because the heavily forested area provided ample cover.

He said he took two Adderall pills, a stimulant used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, on the day of the shooting, then got into position in the woods about an hour before.

Authorities say Frein shot Dickson as he was leaving the barracks at the end of his shift, then shot Douglass, who was just arriving and had bent over to tend to his fallen colleague.

Frein said he could hear Dickson yelling in pain after the first shot. Frein agreed with Trooper Michael Mulvey when Mulvey suggested that Frein then shot Dickson a second time to “put him out of his misery.”

“That sounds horrible,” Frein said.

Defense attorneys had tried to suppress the nearly 3 1/2 hour video, arguing police had violated his right to remain silent, but a judge overruled them and said the jurors could see it. His lawyers are appealing that ruling to a higher court.

The police interviewers quickly struck up a rapport with Frein, who had been at the top of the FBI’s most-wanted list, giving him cigarettes and coffee and complimenting him and his parents as he sat in a chair, shackled to the floor, in a corner of the interview room.

“You, sir, are the champion of hide and seek,” Mulvey told him.

Cpl. Benjamin Clark asked Frein to give “closure” to Dickson’s widow and two young sons by providing an explanation for the attack. He and Mulvey asked Frein dozens of times why he did it. But Frein either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer the question directly.

Static was laced throughout the video’s audio track, often making it impossible to hear what was being said. And Frein primarily spoke in a soft voice that could be difficult to make out. The judge acknowledged the sound problems and told jurors to do the best they could with it.